In 1961, young Maurice Sendak illustrated Let’s Be Enemies — a charming lesson in friendship via reverse psychology by writer Janice May Urdy, published by Harper’s children’s division. Eight years later, the same publisher, overseen by Sendak’s remarkable editor and patron-saint Ursula Nordstrom, came out with The Hating Book (public library | IndieBound) by Charlotte Zolotow, the beloved children’s writer whom we recently lost and with whom Sendak frequently collaborated — a story strikingly similar in its ethos to Let’s Be Enemies, only featuring two little girls rather than two little boys, and illustrated by a very young Ben Shecter in a style akin to Sendak’s.

Whether the parallel was intentional or just the product of creative happenstance, we’ll never know. But Zolotow’s story and Shecter’s illustrations stand on their own not only as a lovely vintage treasure, but also an endearing, light-hearted yet poignant reminder that we invent our attitudes towards friends and foes, that a great deal of how we interpret another person’s behavior and intentions is merely a projection of the stories we’ve constructed about them, and that open communication is the glue of true friendship.

I hate, hate, hated my friend.

When I moved over in the school bus, she sat somewhere else.

When her point broke in arithmetic and I passed her my pencil, she took Peter’s instead.

What if she should say
Oh, please, just go away.
You’re ugly and dumb.
Being with you
was never fun.

Oh, I hated my friend.

When it was her turn to wash the board,
she didn’t ask me to help.

Oh, I hated my friend.

When I went to walk home with her,
she had already gone.

When she took her dog out
and I whistled to him,
she put him on a leash
and led him away.

Oh, I hated my friend.

After a few more spreads of inner turmoil, the snubbed little girl eventually decides to take her mother’s advice and confront her friend.

“You’ve been so rotten,” I said.
“Why?”
She looked as though she’d cry.
“It’s you,” she said. “Last week
when I wore my new dress,
Sue said Jane said you said
I looked like a freak.”
“I did not!
I said you looked neat!”

She looked straight at me for a while,
and then we both began to smile.
My friend said, “Hey
maybe tomorrow we can play?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “OKAY!”

I didn’t hate her anyway.
I wish it were tomorrow.

Mercifully, The Hating Book was reprinted in 1989 and remains in circulation — treat yourself to it, then revisit I’ll Be You and You Be Me, the lovely 1954 ode to friendship by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Sendak.

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